Animation Mentor Prices

A friend of mine at work showed me this link where people are talking about the prices of Animation Mentor. Before I comment on this, I should point out that I'm one of the Mentors. But I have had no say in how much it costs, I found out how much it was going to cost by looking at the website when it was published along with everyone else.

I knew people would complain about the price no mater what price they put on the program. $500, $2,000, $10,000 they'd all get complaints about being too expensive. It ended up being a lot cheaper then I thought it was going to be. I was expecting it to be about $10,000-15,000/for 6 months.

I attended CalArts and that's not a cheep school. If it wasn't for the grace of my parents I would have never been able to attend. When I went to CalArts I was in a class of about 150 students, 8 of us graduated. Most people went there for a year or two and got a job, or they left because they just couldn't afford to attend for all 4 years. Everyone talked about how expensive it was to go there, one thing they all talked about was how the students learned more from each other then they did from the classes.

A group of us came up with the idea of pulling our money together, buying a pencil test camera and a down shooter and renting a place. We would learn from each other and every once in a while we'd use our contacts to get an animator from the studios to come over, lecture us and critique our work. We figured it would be cheaper and we'd probably get a better education that way. We knew that we didn't need a sheep skin saying we graduated collage, studios don't care if you've been to collage, just that you could animate.

We never did it. We all just kept paying for Collage as long as we could afford to. Animation Mentor reminds me of this idea that we had at CalArts, but better, much better. I think it will really work. What better way to learn how to animate then to get critiques from people who are out there doing it! What better way to get a job then to get to know people who are out there doing it! I can't think of a better program. I don't know if they ever talked about this but I'm pretty sure the price is necessary to make sure you only have students who are serious about doing it. If you plop down $2,000 then you'll be darn sure to do the lessons, and complete the program.

Over all I think the Animation Mentor program will prove to be an invaluable program. I can't wait to see it grow.